“It was a very ugly moment for the former speaker,” Jim Acosta told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. “He will admit himself, he arouses passions in people that sometimes can really vent themselves out on the campaign trail.”

AOL, by way of The Huffington Post, made the incident one of its top stories on its widely trafficked home page, and threw in a woman, identified as a supporter, telling Gingrich not to be “arrogant and narcissistic,” as well as a gay man who pressed Gingrich on his stance against same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday, a Google news search identified 1,944 news mentions of the incident, and many more if you run two searches, one with the spelling “Sorenson” and another with “Sorensen.”

A blog item linked at The Wall Street Journal, for example, was headlined: “Confirmed: Unhinged jerk who called Newt Gingrich a ‘f-king a-hole’ at grocery store is a Democrat.”

At the left-wing Wonkette blog, on the other hand, the video is presented under the headline: “Hero Iowa voter perfectly describes Newt Gingrich to his face.”